AN INVITATION
September 2017
This is an open invitation to observe, comment, advise and participate in my project either on my blog, privately, behind the scenes or directly in person. Scrutiny of my methodologies, analysis and outcomes as well as ideas for article and studies posts to keep the site up to date are most welcome.
I’ve researched and designed this project entirely my own without any formal help from health professionals except for advice on screening criteria and am fully responsible for its outcomes. I’m working with two doctors to supervise the donor screening process but would be more than happy to include more medical or scientific professionals in the process. Please read and sign the AGREEMENT form if you'd like to officially participate, otherwise just CONTACT me and we can keep it off the record. Fine either way.
If any research lab, microbiology department, doctors, or medical students et al are interested in getting involved (or weighing in on this project) I would welcome the input. If anyone knows a foreign medical student who might fit my screening criteria (VERY STRICT) please steer them to this site!
I’ll be posting my progress by blog and via the charts I’ve set up on the Project Tracking pages.
Somewhere in between knocking on some skinny (seemingly healthy) neighbor’s door for FMT donations and the clinical trials currently underway, lays my project. In 2012, when I had my first FMT for a C.Diff infection, the screening criteria for donors was pretty basic. A “family member”, with a simple blood and stool test, was considered a good match. We are now, thankfully, light years away from that scenario!
DIY sites are filled with optimistic, anecdotal accounts of FMT treatments and recoveries but offer little tracking information.
On the other end are clinical trials typically involving one FMT and if Dr Jeff Leach is half right, using unhealthy “Western” gut donors vs. Traditional ones which might actually be adversely affecting trial outcomes. Which is why I’ve come in between these two worlds - with my Goldilocks Zone project. I need the FMT donor equivalent of a Hadza tribe member, on a long-term basis with careful tracking. Not one FMT from a questionable donor.
With any luck, in 5 to 10 years, we’ll be able to walk into our doctor’s office, review our latest gut flora screening results (which we can start to do now) to see what microbes are missing to determine which ones we need to take in pill form (which we cannot do now) to alleviate any number of “modern plagues” now linked to dysbiosis.
The list is long, the research new.
Quickly emerging are essential links between some specific diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, chronic fatigue,(my issues) Crohn’s, IBS, UC, celiac, Parkinson’s, MS, Type 1 diabetes, asthma, autism, allergies et al and an incipient revolution in science and medicine with targeted microbial drug therapies using extracted human “probiotic” to treat these conditions.
But we’re not quite there yet.
Thus my choice of the “Fresh Direct” method.
You are encouraged to confirm the information on my site with other sources and please do get in touch.
Many Happy Microbes!
Evelyn Tully Costa
OR USE THE CONTACT PAGE